All Blizzard games aside from Diablo Immortal, which runs under a separate agreement, had to shut down their services in China on January 23, 2023, due to the partnership between Blizzard and NetEase running out. Foreign developers need to be partnered up with a Chinese company to publish games in the country, a condition Blizzard no longer fulfills.
Things have turned into a bit of an ugly divorce, so reconciliation seems very unlikely for now. Blizzard is said to look for a new distribution partner in China, but it's impossible to know how long that will take.
The good news for SC2 is that the SCBOY community is still determined to not only finish the ongoing season of WTL, but to hold a Spring 2023 Season as well – though without the financial support of NetEase.
Best of luck to our Chinese friends in their new adventures on the Asia server, and let's hope for a somewhat swift return of StarCraft and Warcraft there – all your achievements and rankings might have been deleted, but you still have your memories and you're still a part of this community.
The server situation on the player side is not nearly big of a problem as anyone that is remotely serious about competitive StarCraft already have a non-Chinese account. The real kicker is how coop and arcade players lost the entirety of their progress with no means to transfer, and of course the potential financial support of WTL from NetEase.
On January 25 2023 09:32 qcHanHan wrote: Goddamnit China.
Not sure China is even at fault here. It largely stems from the breakup between NetEase and Blizzard, right?
That's right. But what's the "NetEase" of Korea? Of Finland? Of France? Of anywhere else? Umm, it should be no problem because there's no "NetEase" in any other country, right? They could just open the client and play the game in China too. Why is this big news?
On January 25 2023 09:32 qcHanHan wrote: Goddamnit China.
This is entirely on the greed of Activision.
Yeah probably all Activision and nothing about how the Chinese state is isolating itself from the world by making it difficult for certain types of foreign businesses to operate there.
"Foreign developers need to be partnered up with a Chinese company to publish games in the country, a condition Blizzard no longer fulfills."
Imagine being a company essentially gaslighting their playerbase in favor of making big China dollars with mobile games and now that business decision kinda seems to have backfired...
On January 25 2023 09:32 qcHanHan wrote: Goddamnit China.
This is entirely on the greed of Activision.
Yeah probably all Activision and nothing about how the Chinese state is isolating itself from the world by making it difficult for certain types of foreign businesses to operate there.
"Foreign developers need to be partnered up with a Chinese company to publish games in the country, a condition Blizzard no longer fulfills."
This doesn't make you wonder?
Yeah, makes me wonder how they thought it would be a good idea to put up with this bullshit for some ez cash grab money.
On January 25 2023 09:32 qcHanHan wrote: Goddamnit China.
This is entirely on the greed of Activision.
Yeah probably all Activision and nothing about how the Chinese state is isolating itself from the world by making it difficult for certain types of foreign businesses to operate there.
"Foreign developers need to be partnered up with a Chinese company to publish games in the country, a condition Blizzard no longer fulfills."
This doesn't make you wonder?
Yeah, makes me wonder how they thought it would be a good idea to put up with this bullshit for some ez cash grab money.
It's not limited to Blizz or even the videogames industry. Other companies doing business in China are affected as well. The US and EU, among others, have been complaining about unfair trade practices for years now but nobody is willing to do anything about it.
On January 25 2023 09:32 qcHanHan wrote: Goddamnit China.
This is entirely on the greed of Activision.
Yeah probably all Activision and nothing about how the Chinese state is isolating itself from the world by making it difficult for certain types of foreign businesses to operate there.
"Foreign developers need to be partnered up with a Chinese company to publish games in the country, a condition Blizzard no longer fulfills."
This doesn't make you wonder?
Makes me wonder what will happen if China invades Taiwan. Chinese gamers need to demand some homegrown games if they want to play in the future I'm thinking to prevent situations like this from affecting them.
Hopefully NetEase can make something other than pay-to-win games.
So the last part of this article would suggest that the chinese players will be playing on the Asia server. Does anyone know if that's really the case? Do they still have access to other servers?
On January 26 2023 11:23 ProTech wrote: So the last part of this article would suggest that the chinese players will be playing on the Asia server. Does anyone know if that's really the case? Do they still have access to other servers?
Yeah, as digmouse said in this thread and others have elsewhere, they can still connect to the other servers.
I'd also be kind of interested in the nitty gritty details, though. Is the Battle.net app defunct? How exactly are updates delivered now? How do you get a new copy of the game for your new PC? I assume the answer to most of that is setting sail to the high seas.
On January 25 2023 09:32 qcHanHan wrote: Goddamnit China.
This is entirely on the greed of Activision.
Yeah probably all Activision and nothing about how the Chinese state is isolating itself from the world by making it difficult for certain types of foreign businesses to operate there.
"Foreign developers need to be partnered up with a Chinese company to publish games in the country, a condition Blizzard no longer fulfills."
This doesn't make you wonder?
Makes me wonder what will happen if China invades Taiwan. Chinese gamers need to demand some homegrown games if they want to play in the future I'm thinking to prevent situations like this from affecting them.
Hopefully NetEase can make something other than pay-to-win games.
So there are plenty of homegrown gacha hells, making much better profit.
But in terms of games, it is not that easy to find something like Starcraft now, is it? Most of the words come from other blzz games but not SC. That's where the big money is.
Years ago, blizzard saw the end of Korean SC Kespa. That was even before their company scandals revealed. And news said there were some bad negotiations, even though it didnt touch the availability of games. I wouldn't say it was all good before Activision takes control. But now the "Blizzard" of present is killing all legacy from the real SC developers, in the game and around the game.
On January 26 2023 11:23 ProTech wrote: So the last part of this article would suggest that the chinese players will be playing on the Asia server. Does anyone know if that's really the case? Do they still have access to other servers?
Yeah, as digmouse said in this thread and others have elsewhere, they can still connect to the other servers.
I'd also be kind of interested in the nitty gritty details, though. Is the Battle.net app defunct? How exactly are updates delivered now? How do you get a new copy of the game for your new PC? I assume the answer to most of that is setting sail to the high seas.
That's incredibly good news for me then, because the chinese server has a gigantic team game player base, and I've moved to Asia.
On January 25 2023 09:32 qcHanHan wrote: Goddamnit China.
This is entirely on the greed of Activision.
Yeah probably all Activision and nothing about how the Chinese state is isolating itself from the world by making it difficult for certain types of foreign businesses to operate there.
"Foreign developers need to be partnered up with a Chinese company to publish games in the country, a condition Blizzard no longer fulfills."
This doesn't make you wonder?
Yeah, makes me wonder how they thought it would be a good idea to put up with this bullshit for some ez cash grab money.
It's not limited to Blizz or even the videogames industry. Other companies doing business in China are affected as well. The US and EU, among others, have been complaining about unfair trade practices for years now but nobody is willing to do anything about it.
The problem is that the vast majority of businesses have 0 integrity... Hear me out for a second, before I return back to my socialist cave: Maybe, just maybe businesses should seek profits elsewhere and focus on different markets instead of trying to bend over and shoehorn themselves into the position of succumbing to the Chinese government just to tap into some juicy freemium predatory business practices ez money?
On January 26 2023 11:23 ProTech wrote: So the last part of this article would suggest that the chinese players will be playing on the Asia server. Does anyone know if that's really the case? Do they still have access to other servers?
Yeah, as digmouse said in this thread and others have elsewhere, they can still connect to the other servers.
I'd also be kind of interested in the nitty gritty details, though. Is the Battle.net app defunct? How exactly are updates delivered now? How do you get a new copy of the game for your new PC? I assume the answer to most of that is setting sail to the high seas.
Chinese players would have to get a new international Bnet account, rebuy whatever game content they need there, and restart their game progress. The Chinese section of Bnet which is separate from the worldwide version is completely unavailable after the shutdown.
On January 25 2023 09:32 qcHanHan wrote: Goddamnit China.
This is entirely on the greed of Activision.
Not to be a conspiracy theorist, but it's awfully convenient that contract negotiations failed at the exact same time that Tarisland went live.
Tarisland is actually a reskinned version of another series, which spawned from.... a web animation series based on... adventures of WoW character/players. It's pretty fucked up stuff.
On January 25 2023 09:32 qcHanHan wrote: Goddamnit China.
This is entirely on the greed of Activision.
Yeah probably all Activision and nothing about how the Chinese state is isolating itself from the world by making it difficult for certain types of foreign businesses to operate there.
"Foreign developers need to be partnered up with a Chinese company to publish games in the country, a condition Blizzard no longer fulfills."
This doesn't make you wonder?
Long story short is high-ups at Activision was not happy with Blizzard's revenue stream and demanded change (China only contributed 12% of Blizzard's revenue and only 3% across ABK), specifically higher revenue split and tighter control on how their games operate in China, stripping a lot of autonomy from NetEase's operations.
On January 27 2023 03:48 Bomzj wrote: Not a problem for SC2, since there are literally no players in China that would affect Pro scene at all.
This is pretty rude to Time. He's better or at the same level as most non Koreans besides like Serral/Reynor/Clem.
It's probably not a problem for pro scene, but for totally different reasons. The pros in China all have multiple accounts, and they're used to play on foreign servers in tournaments. The impact is, casual players in China will be forced to give up the game, or make new accounts on foreign servers, find a way to bypass "the wall", endure the lag, and get used to playing the game in a different language. Pros already did all that so it's no problem for them. But there will probably be a lot less casual players.
On January 25 2023 09:32 qcHanHan wrote: Goddamnit China.
This is entirely on the greed of Activision.
Yeah probably all Activision and nothing about how the Chinese state is isolating itself from the world by making it difficult for certain types of foreign businesses to operate there.
"Foreign developers need to be partnered up with a Chinese company to publish games in the country, a condition Blizzard no longer fulfills."
This doesn't make you wonder?
Yeah, makes me wonder how they thought it would be a good idea to put up with this bullshit for some ez cash grab money.
It's not limited to Blizz or even the videogames industry. Other companies doing business in China are affected as well. The US and EU, among others, have been complaining about unfair trade practices for years now but nobody is willing to do anything about it.
The problem is that the vast majority of businesses have 0 integrity... Hear me out for a second, before I return back to my socialist cave: Maybe, just maybe businesses should seek profits elsewhere and focus on different markets instead of trying to bend over and shoehorn themselves into the position of succumbing to the Chinese government just to tap into some juicy freemium predatory business practices ez money?
You simply cannot have the cake and eat it, too.
These businesses are just following the lead of their politicians, who believed that bringing China into the world economy will make them nicer in the future. "Once they become richer and more integrated in the world economy, they'll cut down on the unfair trade practices and IP theft and what not." It's the same appeasement strategy Germany once pursued with Russia.
the only reason this is such a significant problem in the first place is that blizzard chose to do the always-online stuff that people had a big problem with when it was first announced before sc2 was released
since then it's become standard practice across the games industry to do this, of course, but that doesn't make that a good thing either
On January 25 2023 09:32 qcHanHan wrote: Goddamnit China.
This is entirely on the greed of Activision.
Not to be a conspiracy theorist, but it's awfully convenient that contract negotiations failed at the exact same time that Tarisland went live.
seems very similar situation to lost ark launch in taiwan. announced in like august 2022, even went through beta testing, and they even allowed players to pre-create characters but then all of a sudden in jan 2023, they announced the game will be delayed until further notice.
oh and guess what, lost ark was approved for license in china on dec 30 2022. some theory is that china didnt want taiwan to get a server before china.
On January 25 2023 09:32 qcHanHan wrote: Goddamnit China.
This is entirely on the greed of Activision.
That's a pretty bad take
On January 27 2023 01:32 digmouse wrote: Long story short is high-ups at Activision was not happy with Blizzard's revenue stream and demanded change (China only contributed 12% of Blizzard's revenue and only 3% across ABK), specifically higher revenue split and tighter control on how their games operate in China, stripping a lot of autonomy from NetEase's operations.
Not sure about you but if a company was making money off of your IP, then had the gall to be brazen in negotiations I'd give them the finger too. When all you are providing is services and servers you'd do well to take what you can get.
Not sure how you can say "greed of Activision" when it's literally the opposite in this case.
On January 27 2023 08:39 Godwrath wrote: I just can't fathom how people at the top can be this stupid to implement these kind of systems just to destroy their companies.
I used to work for an IT company much, much bigger than Activision and we got rid of destructive performance measurement processes like this for exactly the reasons listed in the article in that they promoted gaming the system and behaviors that destroyed team cohesion.
At the same time, with the information I currently have, I don't blame Activision for the shutdown of StarCraft II in China, but rather the policies of the People's Republic of China.
Some of you mentioned purchased product being unable to be transfered and I'd love to deep dive a bit more into this. Server migration isn't something new; SEA server was migrated into NA in 2017. Possibly a situation more similar in practice is Garena and League of Legend, where the game isn't actually even ran on Riot client afaik, yet account transfer is still largely being perserved, including skins (not sure about levels and other progress). So why can't Blizzard do the same thing again?
I don't know. The lack of transparency (or perhaps just information) is shocking but I just cannot see Blizzard pulling out on their terms from their track record.
On January 29 2023 22:53 papapanda wrote: Some of you mentioned purchased product being unable to be transfered and I'd love to deep dive a bit more into this. Server migration isn't something new; SEA server was migrated into NA in 2017. Possibly a situation more similar in practice is Garena and League of Legend, where the game isn't actually even ran on Riot client afaik, yet account transfer is still largely being perserved, including skins (not sure about levels and other progress). So why can't Blizzard do the same thing again?
I don't know. The lack of transparency (or perhaps just information) is shocking but I just cannot see Blizzard pulling out on their terms from their track record.
While the chinese government does not allow any kind of data transfer from china to other country and this kind of movement will probably consider as a betrayer. I don't know if it is the truth but most people believe in this opinion.
On January 25 2023 09:32 qcHanHan wrote: Goddamnit China.
This is entirely on the greed of Activision.
Yeah probably all Activision and nothing about how the Chinese state is isolating itself from the world by making it difficult for certain types of foreign businesses to operate there.
"Foreign developers need to be partnered up with a Chinese company to publish games in the country, a condition Blizzard no longer fulfills."
This doesn't make you wonder?
Chinese censorship is a big problem. But every other major esports title operates in China no problem. This make you wonder a bit?
In this specific case, SC2 is no loner generating any profit and purely a money sink, and Blizzard was asking to increase the commission for NetEase when it's already a money-losing, basically branding project for NetEase. They are basically asking for phantom profit which shouldn't exist. No wonder why Blizzard can't find any other partner after breaking up with NetEase. If they are allowed to operate themselves they probably won't. Commissions from NetEase and ESL are basically the only revenues Blizzard's getting from SC2, and operating in China themselves is not gonna recover the NetEase commission, but only adds more cost.
EPT
